Courtesy American College of Physicians and World Science staff
A minor epidemic of streptococcal infection may have killed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the towering composer who died mysteriously in 1791, researchers say.
Speculation on causes of Mozart’s rather sudden death at age 35 have ranged from poisoning to rheumatic fever. But there has been no consensus on what really happened, although most experts call the murder scenario unlikely.
Mozart as portrayed in a contemporary etching by K. Dostal.
The Austrian composer succumbed after a short illness, for which other recent diagnoses have included kidney failure, Henoch-Schonlein purpura, and lethal trichinosis.
According to witnesses, Mozart’s body became badly swollen in his final days. He died on Dec. 5, 1791, ironically in the midst of writing of his famed Requiem or funeral mass, which had been anonymously commissioned. Upon sensing his end was near, witness accounts say, Mozart took to bitterly remarking that the piece must have been meant for himself.
The new study proposing an outbreak of streptococcus bacteria as the cause of Mozart’s demise appears in the Aug. 17 issue of the research journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
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